I found some led t8 replacements on clearance for almost nothing, so I brought home enough to convert my whole garage. The problem is these are used with the ballast, and my lights are actually t12's. So they don't work. Would These make them work?

Wait, what's the ballast voltage? I thought the ballast was just for startup? I.E. give it 600v for a microsecond or two before dropping to 120ish. Meaning LED's designed to work with ballast would still work fine without?

Shame this wasn't a year ago, I threw out 8 T8 ballasts when I converted mine...

No idea. I know that my old lights don't work right. I have eight 2 light fixtures, four on each switch. When I turn them on after they have been off a while they work fine. Then after being on a while individual fixtures cut out for a period of time. Sometime they come back on, sometimes not. I replaced all the bulbs about a year ago with normal t12 fluorescents, with no measurable improvement.

I put the leds in two fixtures yesterday. Both fixtures do the same thing, one bulb is off, the other barely lights enough to tell it's doing anything. When I fiddle with a bulb in the fixture both will flash to full bright for a split second before returning to one off, one very dim.

I put the leds in two fixtures yesterday. Both fixtures do the same thing, one bulb is off, the other barely lights enough to tell it's doing anything. When I fiddle with a bulb in the fixture both will flash to full bright for a split second before returning to one off, one very dim.

LEDs have polarity. Any chance one of the bulbs is backwards? I would think it wouldn't light up at all, but it's an easy check.

If you have T12 fixtures, I would recommend replacing them with a direct-wire LED T8 since they both use shunted ends. The T8s that you got use non-shunted ends, so for them to work, you need to replace the ballast AND the ends... Or just put in a complete new unit. Or find cheap NOS T12 ballasts at a Habitat Re-Store store or clearance rack etc. I have retrofitted several lights to LED at work over the last couple years using all 3 methods.

I got the Phillips instantfit LED tubes. Might not work if your ballast is shot, but no wiring necessary, just pull out the old fluorescent light tube and plug these in.

I think they're even T12 sized.

I've been told not getting rid of the ballast makes them "not worth the energy savings". Anything that means I get better light without needing to deal with old ceiling tile, the insulation above it, or the critters living in the insulation above it, makes it worth it. I just wish I could find them in 8 foot length.

I bought conversion LED bulbs for all of the T-8 4' fluorescents in the house and garage with these from amazon. They play nicely with or without the ballast. I just pulled all the ballasts to eliminate that problem area. Entire process took about 10 min after I had done one. Been in for a couple of years and all are working perfectly.

It was worth the price of admission to not have to screw around with pulling all of the fixtures and also not having to touch another bulb for the next 10+ years.

Most stupid part of the whole thing is that our recycling center won't take more than 10 fluorescent bulbs per month. Took a while to dispose of all I pulled.

So in my search for a cheap fix to my lighting situation i found some cheap 4 bulb t8 fixtures on CL. Perfect, i thought. I needed 8 but i bought 12, because i figured a couple wouldnt work. I put up one, put in the LEDs, worked great. I went to put up the second and noticed this

277 volts it says. So i checked the working one, it says 277 also. So i put up the second, no worky. So did i buy the wrong thing again?

Yep. A 277 ballast on 120 won’t work. A 120 ballast on 277 will work great for a fraction of a second.

The ones you need are straight 120 rated or “multi-volt” type.

The first light i put up works. It says 277 on the ballast, but i didnt look at it very closely to see if it said anything about multi volt. So let me ask you this, if i hook a light up to 120v and it works, is it reasonable to believe it will continue to work? Or could the wrong voltage make it work for a short time then quit? My thinking is to test them on the work bench and if they light then to go ahead and install them.